This invention relates generally to providing discount offers on an online system, and more specifically to providing an offer for a discount that becomes valid at the time it is displayed to a user.
Many online systems display content from third-party merchants alongside content that was generated on the online system. Displaying merchant content on an online system gives rise to several benefits for the merchants, the users of the online system, and the online system itself. For instance, it gives a merchant a platform to promote itself or its products and possibly increase its sales as a result, it provides an additional source of content that users of the online system may find interesting, and it may provide a revenue stream for the online system.
Ordinarily, the merchant content that is displayed on an online system simply includes graphics or text promoting the merchant. Conventional merchant content provides no opportunities for users to engage with the merchant and often fails to provide a compelling reason for a user to purchase something with the merchant. As a result, many users simply scroll past merchant content without paying much attention to it when it is displayed to them by the online system.